and senator robert f. kennedy were assassinated. richard nixon became president and apollo eight became the first manned spacecraft to leave's earth's orbit. >> "mad men" creator matt whiner is here along with john flatter y also kd. i like thi sh you always zig when you're going to san diego. you say there are still parallels from today. >> yeah. >> how so? >> you know when we decided -- obviously you focus where the show is going to start. we focused in spring of '67. do summer love or whatever. i always like to move ahead because it gives me energy in the story. gives me a mystery in the story as to what happens when we weren't with them but as we looked at 1968 it became obvious it was probably one of the worst years in u.s. history and just a relentless barrage of terrible events, political events. the economy was not as bad as it is now, but the war was obviously raging and it became clear that we were losing the war, which is what one of the episodes is about. >> and you think we're raging today. >> i feel like there -- i fee